Yahoo News Premier League HOT or NOT: Fabregas and Sakho back from the dead, Kane on fire, Fabianski flops
What’s sexy, and what isn’t sexy, in football this week…
HOT
Harry Kane
The pattern, by now, is familiar. Tottenham’s No.9 starts the season slowly, prompting some to suggest he isn’t actually that good after all, then he scores a couple of penalties, and before you know it he’s top of the Premier League scoring charts and sending Spurs into springtime dreaming of silverware. Kane’s third hat-trick of 2017 so far, completed in just 23 minutes as Mauricio Pochettino’s side demolished Stoke 4-0, is a remarkable achievement. The sight of him lumbering around France at Euro 2016 taking corners and falling over for his country seems as distant a memory as Tim Sherwood’s gilet.
Cesc Fabregas
The transformation is complete. Slowly but surely, the Chelsea midfielder has worked his way back from lamentable Stamford Bridge outcast to inspirational first-team starter. In many ways, the latter state of affairs was more amusing, but that’s what makes Fabregas’ feat all the more impressive. He was essentially written off, in talent and also – by some – in character, but he has knuckled down and proved the doubters wrong. In Chelsea’s 3-1 win against Swansea, Antonio Conte paired Fabregas with N’Golo Kante in midfield despite the availability of Nemanja Matic. Horses for courses perhaps, but the Spaniard’s ensuing man-of-the-match display makes him pretty much impossible to drop now.
Watch: The ultimate Premier League one-man teams
Mamadou Sakho
Another player who had become something of a joke figure of the 2016/17 season after Jurgen Klopp froze him out at Liverpool, the French defender has been forced to wait very patiently for his right to reply. It came, finally, at Selhurst Park on Saturday, as Sakho made his first professional appearance for 10 months in Crystal Palace’s much-needed 1-0 win against fellow relegation battlers Middlesbrough. Rustiness would have been expected, but the on-loan centre-back was instrumental in the victory – only the Eagles’ second win (and second clean sheet) since Sam Allardyce’s arrival – with an assured display.
NOT
Lukasz Fabianski
Nobody, apart from Chelsea fans, wants Chelsea to win football matches. This is true at the best of times, but especially this season when each routine Blues win makes the title “race” that little bit more boring. So as citizens of the world we should all be doing whatever we can to prevent Antonio Conte’s side winning, and Swansea’s goalkeeper frankly didn’t fulfil his side of the bargain on Saturday. With the Swans’ trip to Stamford Bridge delicately poised at 1-1 in the second half, Fabianski feebly let a Pedro pea-roller squirm through his arms to hand the league leaders three points. Referee Neil Swarbrick also has some explaining to do after denying the visitors a penalty moments earlier when Cesar Azpilicueta clearly handled in the area.
Middlesbrough’s strikers
There is certainly no shortage of men fitting this description, but it looks like a case of quantity over quality in the Teessiders’ front-line as Alvaro Negredo, Cristhian Stuani, Rudy Gestede and Patrick Bamford fired another collective blank in the 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace (to be fair to Bamford, he didn’t actually play). Boro have scored just once in open play in their last seven matches, with the January acquisitions of Gestede and Bamford failing to spice up their attack in the way manager Aitor Karanka might have hoped. Good defence though.
Stoke City’s pace
There is plenty of experience in the Potters’ midfield triumvirate of Glenn Whelan, Charlie Adam and Joe Allen, ably assisted by the evergreen Peter Crouch in the lone striker role. But has there ever been a slower attacking spine employed in a Premier League match? Sadly, Stoke’s experience didn’t prove very useful in the 4-0 defeat at Spurs, whereas their lack of pace was painfully evident throughout. Speedy new signing Saido Berahino can’t start shedding those pounds quick enough, because at the moment Mark Hughes’ side risk plodding through the final months of the season in a mid-table stupor.
